I am in the camp that believes 5.2 is just a little too soon. A lot of people seem to forget that a majority of 'raiders' had to deal with leveling, gearing up for normal modes, and then actually downing normal bosses. The amount of time that took varied vastly; your heroic raiders (a minority) rushed to level cap in 1-2 days, had workarounds to stuff that normally stalled regular raiders, and quickly dispatched content- because that's what they do.

In no way am I trying to state this as fact, but only going off of information available to me, it seems like most raiders took their time getting to level cap and then gearing up for normal modes. Especially when you're in the mindset still from Cataclysm when your experience has been, 'Why rush? It's just going to sit there for 6+ months anyways' - Yes, blizzard said they would try to push out content faster, but I'm sure most of the playerbase should be excused for being a tad skeptical.

Plus, even while leveling, every other NPC was telling you to 'Slow down! Enjoy life!' I have to say I drank a little of this Kool-aid, and I very much enjoyed the leveling experience MoP had to offer. Jade Forest is one of the most beautiful zones I've played in.

Mini-digression aside, taking into account the leveling process and the gating of each raid, level-cap content really hasn't been out that long compared to what we've been accustomed to; hence the backlash.

It's unfortunate that I probably won't get to clear all of normal modes before 5.2 hits, but I'm not complaining. I know our raid group was a little behind the 8-ball when we started in MSV. Now that people don't have to worry about the whole leveling process, if they keep content coming out at this pace, I believe it would be perfect.

Serioussly, if there are people who want raid tier last for 8 months or longer, and with their whining they will encourage Blizzard to do this, I may as well quit WoW now, because I will never be fine with it.

It's really only us progression raiders that have an issue with the timing of this patch. There are many, many great changes coming in 5.2 that even I sincerely look forward to. The issue simply lies in the fact that this patch also releases a new raid before we have had a chance to complete 16/16H. The fact that Blizz decided to add the Feats of Strength in the same patch throws even more incentive in the mix to complete the tier before its made obsolete to most
progression based guilds. Hell, I can't imagine how much peoples attitudes toward this subject would change if attunement requirements were once again implemented, requiring a full clear before moving to new content.

Anyhow, this could all be potentially fixed if we could either have the patch pushed back to mid or end of march OR if Blizz would go ahead and release the patch but simply gate the new raid for that same amount of time.

I don't really mind either way but unless we see a huge increase in the number of Sha kills in the next two weeks, this will be the least completed raid tier since Naxx 40.

As it stands, there are less than 450 guilds that have cleared everything, that's 1.6%, and the next boss is at 870 (2.16%) that is tiny compared to the cataclysm tiers since there have been no real nerfs (a few fixes) this time. Maybe this is the new philosophy, but you can see that there will be a lot of whiners when a decent (top 1000) guild could expect to comfortably clear content with time to spare but that bar has now risen to 500 with less than one reset of breathing space.

Also, for reference, we will ignore dragon soul for obvious reasons, but Tier 11 had a 4% clearance rate, with 2.8% if you include Sinestra. While tier 12 was as high as 11% though that is heavily due to the Ragnaros nerfs and the fact that was able to be outgeared. Still, this tier's rate will probably be less than Sinestra's with no special heroic only boss.

It's really only us progression raiders that have an issue with the timing of this patch. There are many, many great changes coming in 5.2 that even I sincerely look forward to. The issue simply lies in the fact that this patch also releases a new raid before we have had a chance to complete 16/16H. The fact that Blizz decided to add the Feats of Strength in the same patch throws even more incentive in the mix to complete the tier before its made obsolete to most
progression based guilds. Hell, I can't imagine how much peoples attitudes toward this subject would change if attunement requirements were once again implemented, requiring a full clear before moving to new content.

Anyhow, this could all be potentially fixed if we could either have the patch pushed back to mid or end of march OR if Blizz would go ahead and release the patch but simply gate the new raid for that same amount of time.

The amount of people in the situation you describe is miniscule compared to the rest of the population and I don't believe there is any reason to delay new content to satisfy needs of such a tiny number of players.

I thought the raiding community wanted heroic raiding difficult enough to separate the men from the boys? The extra time people are asking for seems to be so they can obtain better gear, why is this acceptable and a 10% or 20% nerf is not? If guilds cannot complete the content within the allotted time to achieve the Feat of Strength then they have to accept the fact that like the rest of us scrubs they are not good enough.

The amount of people in the situation you describe is miniscule compared to the rest of the population and I don't believe there is any reason to delay new content to satisfy needs of such a tiny number of players.

I thought the raiding community wanted heroic raiding difficult enough to separate the men from the boys? The extra time people are asking for seems to be so they can obtain better gear, why is this acceptable and a 10% or 20% nerf is not? If guilds cannot complete the content within the allotted time to achieve the Feat of Strength then they have to accept the fact that like the rest of us scrubs they are not good enough.

Did you even read the thread, realy it gets tyring trying to explain that a 16 boss raid tier takes a long time to complete if you dont raid 6 hours a day or whatever everyday like the top guilds do, even some of these top guilds havent finished the tier yet so ye it is too fast for a new raid, the rest of the patch is OK to come now, in fact is good that it does the issue is with the raid alone.

Did you even read the thread, realy it gets tyring trying to explain that a 16 boss raid tier takes a long time to complete if you dont raid 6 hours a day or whatever everyday like the top guilds do, even some of these top guilds havent finished the tier yet so ye it is too fast for a new raid, the rest of the patch is OK to come now, in fact is good that it does the issue is with the raid alone.

The point is, though... only a small number of players ever even touch a SINGLE boss in normal. You can't really pace your content around that. They sort of pander to that minority as is, and it makes zero damned sense. I mean, really, I just don't get it. Why would people expect that group to be catered to at all, when they're a very small portion of the playerbase? Even if it was double the amount of bosses, it wouldn't matter. The majority of the players out there would of done seen it a million times over in LFR, which is, despite what some people want to believe, the main content people do. Those people need more stuff to do. The majority needs more stuff to do. Not to have extra content held back because of some sort of weird mental problems with 5% of the playerbase.

The point is, though... only a small number of players ever even touch a SINGLE boss in normal. You can't really pace your content around that. They sort of pander to that minority as is, and it makes zero damned sense. I mean, really, I just don't get it. Why would people expect that group to be catered to at all, when they're a very small portion of the playerbase? Even if it was double the amount of bosses, it wouldn't matter. The majority of the players out there would of done seen it a million times over in LFR, which is, despite what some people want to believe, the main content people do. Those people need more stuff to do. The majority needs more stuff to do. Not to have extra content held back because of some sort of weird mental problems with 5% of the playerbase.

Its not 5% of the playerbase that number is completly made up, it might be 5% of the playerbase that do progressive raiding but theres way more tham 5% that step into normals as you say, also if the main thing on a raid tier isnt the raid them wtfck is it, and most of the ppl thats casual and dont raid it makes absolutely no diference for them if theres another raid tier out or not so release the patch and dont release the raid yet, simple.

Most of the people that want new content so bad and faster patches are baddies that have cleared raidfinder a few times and got bored. Those players have not even done the content in the current patch and they wont do the content in the new patch either... they will be bored whining for faster patches a few weeks after release.

It's most likely being delayed another week at least according to the updated post:

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

If you’ve already made plans and sank your Valor, don’t fret! As of this announcement, and even if you have 0 Valor currently, you still have enough time to cap out at 3000 Valor before patch 5.2 goes live. (It’s math!)

That means we have 3 more weeks at least if not 4 because people could've spent vp this week. Not sure exactly.

Did you even read the thread, realy it gets tyring trying to explain that a 16 boss raid tier takes a long time to complete if you dont raid 6 hours a day or whatever everyday like the top guilds do, even some of these top guilds havent finished the tier yet so ye it is too fast for a new raid, the rest of the patch is OK to come now, in fact is good that it does the issue is with the raid alone.

Yes, I did read the thread. The fact of the matter is that people who this issue affects is a tiny proportion of the population why should those of us that have already completed the content or simply have no interest in it, have content that we are waiting for delayed so a few people can earn a Feat of Strength? You would not see arena players asking Blizzard to delay the end of a season so they can gain a better rating.

Essentially you are asking the majority of the player base to continue to pay for no new content whilst a few pursue an achievement. I do understand that there are only a small number of guilds that have completed the current raid tier and for normal raids this points to a too big a step up in difficulty from LFR. But for Heroic difficulty the raiding community asked for a level of difficulty that only the best could complete and now faced with the prospect of only the very best completing it within the current tier people are saying they have not had enough time. There is nothing stopping the guilds that have not completed the current tier revisiting it in the next tier to complete missing achievements when they have better gear.

I the way I see it is you either have so that only the very best can complete the tier whilst it is current, as it is now, or the difficulty is reduced so that more guilds can complete it. You cannot have it both ways. And to ask the majority of players to go without new content so a few guilds can earn an achievement is simply unreasonable.

Yes, I did read the thread. The fact of the matter is that people who this issue affects is a tiny proportion of the population why should those of us that have already completed the content or simply have no interest in it, have content that we are waiting for delayed so a few people can earn a Feat of Strength? You would not see arena players asking Blizzard to delay the end of a season so they can gain a better rating.

Essentially you are asking the majority of the player base to continue to pay for no new content whilst a few pursue an achievement. I do understand that there are only a small number of guilds that have completed the current raid tier and for normal raids this points to a too big a step up in difficulty from LFR. But for Heroic difficulty the raiding community asked for a level of difficulty that only the best could complete and now faced with the prospect of only the very best completing it within the current tier people are saying they have not had enough time. There is nothing stopping the guilds that have not completed the current tier revisiting it in the next tier to complete missing achievements when they have better gear.

I dont think a patch should last until everybody and their dog cleared content, the line needs to be drawn somewhere. However, I'd like to question that the speed of updating content should be decided by LFR: you know very well that LFR content is cleared within the week it's launched, a lot with the help of the more organized raiders at least in the beginning (imagine Garalon in the first week with a bunch of freshly dinged min gear req, clueless about tactics ppl). You use those ppl to clear your content faster and less painful, and the content gets outdated for you very fast. If you didnt have those ppl to push groups in LFR, you would need to progress there too, and then you might have a bit more respect for what progress means. And you might get bored a little slower. You easily discard medium progress raiders, but when you talk about the "majority represented by LFR raiders" do you take into consideration how many of the LFR raiders also do progress raiding? How would lockout sharing for LFR/normal/hc affect the numbers of LFR raiders? How would that affect the rate of success of LFR and the boredom in it?

The truth is those groups are not exclusive. I raid progress hc raids, but I still do LFR weekly to cap my valor points or to help guildies with a faster queue, since I'm a healer. Do you want to me to explain to you how many times I had to change from dps to healing after LFR groups wiped over and over?

So the groups are more like:

1. Hardcore guilds that cleared 16/16 hc. Unless you cap their valors in challenges, they will still do LFR for that. You think they have nothing to do with valors at this time? Item upgrades say hi. I capped myself every single week and I'm far from having everything upgraded.
2. Semi-hardcore guilds that clear 10-14 hc and rest on normal. I'm there and I still need to go LFR to cap valors (see reason above), even if LFR is not interesting nor does it yield any rewards for me, not even for shadow.
3. Normal modes raiders. They will go to LFR too to pick up the odd piece of gear and to cap vps.
4. LFR only raiders.

Purely from a point of view of sheer numbers, all the categories feed the LFR "majority". It doesn't mean that all those ppl are done with the content and bored. Yes, everybody is bored of LFR, but many LFR players also do various kinds of progress. Also, a lot of LFR players do a lot of other things in the game, instead of limiting themselves to the boredom of a washed up loot pinata. So, should the game be paced around LFR? Why bother with 2 more difficulties if only 1% of the players will get to down all? Yes, a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I question 1% being a good line. I also question releasing a patch with close to no testing. And why? Because a bunch of LFR heroes got bored of being boosted by actual raiders? Have you even been on the PTR to see the pile of bugs that 5.2 is atm? Oh wait, what do you care, you'll have a bunch of actual raiders jumping in to clear your lfrs for the first month so they can upgrade their gear for normal raiding, so you can get bored within that month. I'd laugh my ass out to see LFR raiders deal with the tactics I've seen on a few bosses on PTR without actual raiders.

As for nothing stopping guilds to go back and complete achievements, I can name you 2 things that will:
1. Some achievements are feats of strength. We wont be able to go back for those.
2. Time. As much as you imagine all hc raiders have nothing to do than raid all night and day, we will actually have to choose between current tier and previous tier. And choosing to sacrifice current tier for the former is suicide for any progress guild. Oh, and most hc raiders dont give a toss about killing overgeared crap. We dont miss better gear atm, we miss time.

Of course this affects the medium-core raiders the most. We're 13/16H, but we only raid 9-12 hours a week depending on our schedule. Considering it was mid-November when all bosses were finally released and heroic modes were available in everything, it'll be about 4 months for 16 heroic bosses, even with this extra week added on. Now granted, you could have been up-to 6/6H before that 4 months started because of the gating, but even if you only had the 10 heroic HoF and ToES bosses left, that's a little over a week of raiding per boss to stay on pace. And most of these medium tier progression guilds weren't 6/6H. IIRC, we were 4/6H when heroic modes were available in HoF/ToES, so we had 4 months to do 12 heroic bosses. Maybe you think "Hey, it was done in a week, you should be able to do it," but a lot of these bosses took 50/60 and up to a couple hundred attempts for some guilds. It'll take us slightly less, maybe 40 or so, but even so, they knock out the 50 attempts in one 12 hour night, we take 2 weeks to do it so we can clear farm as well beforehand.

It is easily one the largest tiers ever, in one of the shortest amounts of time. Only ToC was a shorter tier time-wise, only T8 (Naxx + Sarth + Maly) was longer with 17 bosses, even though most people stopped doing Sarth/Maly at some point.

Of course this affects the medium-core raiders the most. We're 13/16H, but we only raid 9-12 hours a week depending on our schedule. Considering it was mid-November when all bosses were finally released and heroic modes were available in everything, it'll be about 4 months for 16 heroic bosses, even with this extra week added on. Now granted, you could have been up-to 6/6H before that 4 months started because of the gating, but even if you only had the 10 heroic HoF and ToES bosses left, that's a little over a week of raiding per boss to stay on pace. And most of these medium tier progression guilds weren't 6/6H. IIRC, we were 4/6H when heroic modes were available in HoF/ToES, so we had 4 months to do 12 heroic bosses. Maybe you think "Hey, it was done in a week, you should be able to do it," but a lot of these bosses took 50/60 and up to a couple hundred attempts for some guilds. It'll take us slightly less, maybe 40 or so, but even so, they knock out the 50 attempts in one 12 hour night, we take 2 weeks to do it so we can clear farm as well beforehand.

It is easily one the largest tiers ever, in one of the shortest amounts of time. Only ToC was a shorter tier time-wise, only T8 (Naxx + Sarth + Maly) was longer with 17 bosses, even though most people stopped doing Sarth/Maly at some point.

Not just this, but consider the amount of hot-fixes, patches n' bugs that can be exploited when LFR testing has barely passed, and heroic raid testing haven't even / near enough haven't started (Which also means there's been no fixes to either yet)

Personally I value quality > quantity any day of the week, I still remember having to cancel raids during the opening weeks of this tier (mainly due to players having issues login on after hot fixes / patches), I for one am not eager to see that again as it's frustrating as hell.